


Let Him Dance With Me (Just for the Hell of It)

by shiptoomuch



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Meet-Ugly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 08:20:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19058845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiptoomuch/pseuds/shiptoomuch
Summary: Turns out having loud sex with your fwb does not make you popular with the neighbors...





	Let Him Dance With Me (Just for the Hell of It)

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo this is my OMGCPRB fic! Art partner: karin848!!

As a sexually liberated young gay man, Eric Bittle knows that he shouldn’t be calling it the walk of shame. He should stride out of Ransom’s apartment with his signature swagger and act like his rumpled clothes are a fashion statement.

But…he has a hickey the size of Africa on the back of his neck, and a headache approximately the same size. His back hurts and he’s never having couch sex again…except he knows he definitely is.

And all of this is witnessed by one of Ransom’s neighbors. Of course. Despite it being 6:30 in the morning, and Bitty himself barely being human, there is a man awake and alert and staring at him from where he’s frozen locking his door. He’s got dark hair and broad shoulders and blue eyes ringed by dark circles and he looks like he hates Bitty.

All in all, a good Monday morning.

“Good morning,” Bitty finally says after the two of them staring at each other for probably too long. “Off to work?”

The man looks down at his clothes, a pair of shorts over running tights and a long sleeve under armour shirt, and raises his eyebrows. “Running.”

“Oh! Haha, that makes more sense, what with the time and your…clothes. Yeah,” Bitty trails off under the weight of the stranger’s gaze and fidgets with the zipper of his coat. Maybe the guy is glaring because he doesn’t recognize him and thinks Bitty is breaking in? “I’m Justin’s friend.”

“My bedroom shares a wall with his living room,” the guy supplies apropos of nothing. Why would Bitty care about the layout of Jack’s apartment? It’s not like that’s Bitty’s problem. He’s only ever here to-

Oh dear. Bitty flushes red and the twinge in his back pulls like god punishing him. “Oh my god.”

“So, nice to meet you…Bitty?”

“Haha, yep! That’s me. Eric Bittle! But everyone calls me Bitty.” His face is hot, and he feels like he’s going to pass out from shame. God, he can never come here again. He might never be able to _come_ again. And he deserves it.

His mother probably just woke up knowing that she has to shame her son for something.

“Jack,” the guy says and by the time Bitty realizes that’s his name, he’s already striding off down the hallway and pushing open the door to the stairs that Bitty never takes.

Bitty turns around and walks back into Ransom’s apartment. He’s calling in sick today.

-

Bitty does come again. In both senses of the word. He lets it bother him for all of one week before deciding that neighbor Jack can deal with it. He probably has his own loud sex that annoys neighbors, after all. So Bitty texts Ransom when it’s a Saturday night and he’s horny and gets a “what are friends for?” in return.

It’s only a little annoying that Holster is there when Bitty shows up, but it’s fine, because Holster means getting wine drunk and watching musicals which is basically the perfect foreplay for Bitty.

So, they drink. Then they drink some more. They sing along to the Sound of Music and then Mary Poppins because “fuckin’ Julie Andrews, brah.” Bitty makes out with Holster but the man in question bows out after a while citing brunch with his parents the next morning.

Which leaves Bitty and Ransom and a lot of laughter and sex in a bed this time, and Bitty is really glad this isn’t weird because it sure is fun.

The next morning isn’t so fun. It’s a Sunday, so he manages to stick around for breakfast with Ransom and the sun is up by the time he leaves the apartment, but he still hears the siren call of curling up the blankets and doing nothing all day, and not finishing a report on Instagram interaction growth.

At least there’s no one in the hall to witness this hot mess express limping down to the elevator. It’s too late for anyone to be leaving for brunch and too early for lunch, so he’s safely alone in the hallway resting his head against the cool metal frame of the elevator doors.

The door dings and Bitty drags himself to standing upright and immediately regrets it, because of course Ransom’s neighbor is right there, broad shoulders and narrow waist and raised eyebrows like he can’t believe Bitty is this much of a mess. “Hello, Eric.”

“Jack,” Bitty grumbles out and crosses his arms across his chest.

The mocking eyebrows furrow down and that (plush, pink, perfect, fuck) mouth curves into a frown. “You know, singing isn’t much better than sex.”

“It wasn’t even that late.”

“It was eleven when you stopped.”

“It was a Saturday night.”

“Still. Eleven. It’s rude.”

_Rude._ Bitty has half a mind to call his mother and let her know what this man is saying about her baby boy. Instead, he just scoffs indignantly and pushes past Jack to get into the open elevator. “Nice shoes.”

His last view of Jack is him staring down at his bright yellow sneakers in shock.

-

Bitty runs into Jack during more walks of shame than he’d care to admit before he says a thing to Ransom about it. Starting a feud with your fuckbuddy’s neighbor is not exactly the wisest thing to do, and Ransom does not need to know about how immature Bitty still is.

He discovers that Jack is a history professor. That he has a latex allergy when Bitty gives him a set of passive aggressive ear plugs. That he runs most mornings at 6:30. That he has a _flip phone._

And yet, he didn’t learn that Jack and Ransom apparently hang out sometimes. That they’re friends. That even Holster is friendly with Jack. He did not learn this until he walked into Ransom’s place holding a bottle of sparkling rosé to find Jack sandwiched between the two on the couch watching 30 Rock and _laughing._

Apparently, Jack has no problem with Ransom having loud sex or Holster singing.

“Bits! You beaut! Have you met Rans’ neighbor?” Holster exclaims, vaulting over the couch and manhandling Bitty, still clutching the wine to his chest, into a seat beside Jack on the couch. “Bits, this is Jack. He’s really chill.”

_Chill._ “We’ve met once or twice in the halls.”

Jack nods in agreement and ekes out half a smile. It looks wrong on his face and Bitty has to fight his own grimace. “Hello, Bitty.”

“Jack. So nice to see you, bless your heart.”

“This is great!” Rans says with a green, leaning over to fist bump Holster over both Jack and Bitty, forcing them to be squished even closer together. “I’m glad you two are already buds. Saves us having to introduce you. Holtzy, play the fucker.”

“I hope you are all ready to embark on the musical journey that is Disney’s best work- “

Oh yes, it’s so great. Ransom’s neighbor who seems to hate only Bitty for something that definitely involves at least Ransom (and sometimes Holster), is now part of movie night. And since Holster has decided to squish in next to Bitty rather than sitting in the armchair like a boy his size should, Bitty is pressed up against Jack from shoulder to hip to knee.

He can feel every inch of muscle every time Jack shifts. And he shifts a lot, like he’ll magically be able to make himself comfortable on a secondhand couch occupied by three and three-quarters of grown man. (He’s realistic.)

Midway through Frollo singing about being horny and wanting to murder people over it, Bitty stands up abruptly, no longer able to handle it. “I’m going to open the wine and pull that pie out of your freezer, Rans. Jack, can you help me?”

Jack looks at Bitty like he has two heads but stands to follow. “Uh. Sure?”

“Are you planning on coming to many more of these?” Bitty asks once he’s sure they’re out of earshot.

“I didn’t know you’d be here,” Jack says like that answers anything. And how could he not know?

“They’re my friends. And you complain literally every Saturday about us making so much noise on Friday night.”

“When they invited me, I thought you wouldn’t been here.”

“Why wouldn’t I be here?”

“Because I figured you’d told them how much you hate me?”

Bitty huffs. He does have a point. “Well I didn’t want to make things awkward with Rans and his neighbors.”

“So, you do hate me,” Jack says.

“What- Why- You hated me first!” Bitty splutters out.

“I didn’t hate you. You caught me on a bad day.”

“I caught you on a lot of bad days.”

Jack scrubs a hand down his face and gives Bitty a pained look, like he is being forced to admit something that he rather wouldn’t. “Well I’m sorry, but I don’t exactly love having to listen to you have sex with my neighbor.”

Bitty frowns and crosses his arms. It would make sense if not for, “You haven’t said anything to Ransom.”

“Well he’s not- I don’t- It’s different!”

Different? “How is it- oh my god.”

Jack is turning bright red and Bitty feels torn between laughing, screaming, and running away as fast as his legs will carry him. Instead he stands stock still in front of a scarlet man who he thought hated him and lets his mouth hang open in a way that his mother would chide him for.

“You…me?”

Jack groans and buries his face in his hands. He opens his mouth to respond but Holster interrupts him by poking his head into the kitchen. “Hey Bits, what kind of pie did you- what’s going on in here?”

He’s sure they look a sight, between Bitty’s shock and Jack’s embarrassment, there is nothing normal about the scene. Holster raises his brows until it seems like they might merge with his hairline.

“I- euh- I have to go,” Jack stammers and pushes past Holster to leave the apartment in a hurry, the door slamming shut behind him. In the other room Ransom has paused the movie so all Bitty is left with is silence and Holster’s judgmental stare.

“What did you do?”

“Why do you think I did something?”

Holster crosses his arms and levels Bitty with a stare. “Because everything was fine, chill, and dandy, and then you two went to the kitchen and now Jack is gone.”

“I don’t think Jack would want me saying…”

“Bitty, that just makes it sound like you did something asshole-ish and you know I love you but making things awkward between Jack and Ransom would be a dick move.”

“Jack wants to fuck me!” Bitty blurts out to save his own reputation.

“What?” Holster has gone from annoyed to gleeful in a frighteningly short amount of time and Bitty instantly regrets everything. “Ransy! Jack wants to fuck Bitty!”

“He can _hear you.”_ Bitty hisses and practically jumps on Holster to clap a hand over his mouth.

“He can?” Holster says through the hand.

“Yes! He can hear everything that happens on this side of the apartment!”

Holster’s eyebrows knit together and then shoot up in shock. “Oh my god he’s heard you have sex! That’s why he wants to fuck you! Because you’re a loud bottom!”

His exuberance displaces Bitty’s hand and Bitty is left with his only option being considering the dimensions of Ransom’s oven to see if he’d fit inside. “I’m going to kill you. And then myself.”

“What’s up? Why did Jack leave?” Ransom strolls in and stands next to Holster, who still looks far too happy as he slings an arm around Rans’ shoulders.

“Jack left, my dear Ransom, because he’s in love with our little Bitty, and it’s too painful to be around him.”

“Oh my god. He’s not in _love_ with me! He just wants to _fuck_ me.”

“He wants to fuck you?”

“He wants to fuck him!”

“Please for the love of god stop yelling, he’s going to kill us all.”

Ransom gets a thoughtful look on his face. “Well, I was going to ask out Derek soon, so you’ll need another fuckbuddy.”

“I don’t need a fuckbuddy! Nobody _needs_ a fuckbuddy!” Bitty exclaims, feeling hysterical and like he has to be dreaming because there is no way this is what today has become. “And besides, I could just fuck Holster.”

“Holster is dating Esther again.”

Oh good. An out. “Why are we not talking about that?”

“Because I’m shameless,” Holster says easily.

“I need new friends.”

“No,” Ransom says, “you need a new fuckbuddy.”

-

Jack really should have known better than to masturbate to his neighbor’s boyfriend but, well, here he is.

It’s wrong. It’s creepy. It’s objectification at _best._ The first time he hears them he it isn’t even hot. It’s annoying more than anything, and Jack doesn’t get the least bit turned on.

Then he meets the boyfriend in question and his life falls apart. The boyfriend-Bitty-is petite, blonde, and lithely muscled with an accent to make angels weep. In short, Jack never had a chance.

So, yeah, he has masturbated to his (extremely nice) neighbor’s boyfriend. Not while he’s overhearing them having sex, since that doesn’t happen really that often, but definitely in the shower after a long day. And when he can’t sleep. And…well, Jack is not exactly a good person.

It would be so much easier if Ransom was an asshole. Then Jack could just continue to be unpleasant to Bitty and avoid them both at all costs, and eventually they would break up or he would die, and it would all be solved!

But no, then Jack met his neighbor, and he was so nice that Jack could not help but be friends with him. And Ransom didn’t even seem to mind that Jack was not the nicest to his boyfriend, which was weird, but the guy was Canadian.

So, he spends a lot of his time thinking about Eric Bittle, and hanging out with his boyfriend, and going on runs to try to work off some of his loneliness and sexual frustration. Because that’s all it is. It’s sexual and Jack is just fixating because it has been so damn long since he’s wanted anyone.

It’s nothing, and nobody would have known about it if Jack wasn’t such an idiot.

The shouts from the apartment next door are not exactly comforting.

-

The absolute last thing that Jack expects after that is to be invited over again. What he expected was to become an awkward acquaintance like he has been with every other neighbor he’s ever had, not to be interrupted halfway through a documentary about cat shows to find the boyfriend of the guy he’s into standing in his doorway with a grin.

“Uh, hey Justin.”

“Jack! My man, how are you?”

Jack glances behind himself to check for…he does not know what. “Uh, I’m good. How are you?”

“I’m great, just great.”

The stand like that for a few seconds, Jack holding the door open and Ransom grinning like the cat who ate the canary, and Jack wonders if he’s about to get punched. It’s been a while since he got hit, but Ransom doesn’t seem like a particularly combative guy, so he could probably take it, but it would make the building Christmas party awkward. “Do you…want to come in?”

“Oh, no, I’m all good. I was just stopping by to see if you’re coming to movie night tomorrow. I was going to stop at the store to pick up beer, wanted to see if you had any preferences.”

Jack gapes. “Movie night? I thought after last time…” Jack trails off with a grimace.

Ransom has the wherewithal to look confused for a moment before laughing and shaking his head. “What? That thing with Bitty? I wouldn’t worry about that. He gets a little tightly wound, but he’ll forget it.”

“And you?”

“Me? Oh, I’m fine. Bitty’s hot as fuck, can’t exactly fault you for that, can I?”

This has to be the twilight zone. “Uh, sure I’ll come.”

“Beer?”

“I’ll bring my own. My ex always said I was too picky anyways.”

-

Jack is in the bathroom, and two beers deep, when Bitty shows up before they start The Winter Soldier. His palms start sweating and he feels like he’s going to throw up when he looks at himself in the mirror and hears Bitty say, “Now which of you finally decided to get some decent beer in here instead of the piss water y’all normally drink?”

His head is not on straight enough for this.

“Oh, Jack brought it,” Ransom says cheerfully while Jack practically trips on himself as he exits the bathroom.

“Jack? You invited Jack?” Bitty practically shrieks and whirls around to the sound of the door closing, eyes wide and hands on his hips. “And you _came?”_

“Uh, they said you were over it.”

“And you believed, them, bless your heart,” Bitty scoffs and rolls his eyes.

“I just…wanted to apologize.”

“Apologize.” It’s not a question.

Jack sighs and looks over to Ransom and Holster on the couch, both of them looking some sort of gleeful. “I’m sorry for being an asshole. You didn’t deserve it.”

Bitty’s posture deflates at that, and his lips purse together, “Well that’s-“

Jack probably deserves the situation he’s in. “And Ransom, I’m sorry for being weird to your boyfriend. I’ll go now.”

He nods at everyone and turns to leave. He’s halfway out the door when he hears, “Wait, boyfriend? You think I’m Ransom’s boyfriend?”

Jack pauses, hand still on the handle. “Well, yeah. I mean you two have, like, a lot of sex.”

This garners a whoop from Holster, and a groan from Bitty. Ransom stays grinning like he knew this was coming. “Ransom isn’t my boyfriend.”

“But-“

“But nothing! We hooked up, sure, but we’ve been friends for seven years. We were both single and frustrated. Nothing more than that. We don’t even do that anymore.”

“You don’t?”

“Naw, Rans went and got himself a boyfriend, which leaves me high and dry,” Bitty jokes with a twist of his mouth, “which is probably why you’re here tonight.”

Jack says nothing, just raises a brow and tilts his head to the side.

“He knows you’re into me, so he’s throwing you at me.”

“He’s not wrong,” Ransom says oh-so-helpfully.

“I’m very uncomfortable,” Jack supplies.

Bitty looks like he is about to start fighting someone…anyone…when Holster claps his hands and cuts in with, “How about we drink?”

“I don’t know,” Jack and Bitty answer at the same time, which Jack laughs at and glances to Bitty, who is pursing his lips.

Ransom groans and holds up a bottle opener. “Look, the way I see it, you two could storm out and make this even weirder, or we could make this the _weirdest_ and get drunk together.”

“That’s a horrible idea,” Bitty intones with a raised eyebrow.

“Now, Bits, I know you don’t want to make things more awkward between me and my neighbor. And Jack, wouldn’t you like to get to know Bitty better?”

Bitty snatches the opener from Ransom. “I’m drinking Jack’s beer.”

-

Nowadays, when Ransom and Holster throw parties, it looks almost nothing like the kegsters back at Samwell. They’re all colleagues and expensive wine that people sip slowly, and nobody gets drunk enough to have the kind of crazy fun that would lead them to anything risky.

When it’s just Samwell alum, it’s a different story. Sure, their tolerance is lower, and the likeliness of hangover is higher, but the games they play are much the same, and the laughter is just as loud.

Once they were all appropriately drunk, Holster suggested seven minutes in heaven just, like always, to which Ransom countered with spin the bottle, which had Bitty rolling his eyes. “Please, y’all, we’ve been over this. I’m not kissing Jack.”

“Not yet,” Ransom mumbles into his drink.

“I have it!” Holster proclaims, “Kiss or slap!”

“Kiss or slap?” Comes from Jack while Bitty and Ransom groan good naturedly.

“It’s like spin the bottle, but whoever the bottle lands on gets to decide if they kiss the spinner or if they slap them.”

“Violent.”

“Fun.”

“Hot.” Ransom holds up his bottle in a cheer, which Holster answers with his own.

“I can get behind that,” Bitty says with a smirk and a glance at Jack, who colors and shrugs with false ease.

On the first spin, Ransom gets Bitty, who lands a slap on his left cheek that leaves Ransom moaning dramatically about how his jaw is broken. Bitty spins and gets a kiss from Holster, who earns a slap from an affronted Ransom, and then the bottle lands on Jack.

Jack tilts his head in consideration and Bitty watches him eye an increasingly nervous Ransom like he’s purposefully holding the other man in suspense. Then, to Bitty’s shock, he leans across their little circle and cups Ransom’s face in his hands.

The kiss goes on for longer than Bitty expects, and he finds himself transfixed watching Jack kiss Ransom, awkward as the angle is with Jack leaning forward on his knees and Ransom craning up to meet him, but Bitty cannot stop staring at the hard line of his jaw and the press of his lips against Ransom’s, the bulge of his biceps and the peek of soft waist where his shirt has ridden up.

Lord, but he is a beautiful man.

Bitty finishes his beer as they pull apart to give himself something else to do but stare at Jack’s lips. Jack glances over at him and cracks a shy smile.

Saying that he didn’t want the bottle to land on him would be a blatant lie, but Bitty is still shocked at that bit of serendipity. Jack looks halfway between happy and terrified and Bitty wants consider his options and prove Ransom wrong, prove that his plan didn’t work, but then Jack licks his lips.

Bitty leans in. “Close your eyes,” he whispers, and Jack tenses, but his lids flutter closed and Bitty leans back to take in the picture before he leans in and kisses him.

Kissing Jack feels just about as good as it looked. He gets a surprised hum when they first make contact, but as Bitty presses forward, Jack melts into it and brings his hands up to cup Bitty’s face and waist. When his tongue darts out and presses against the crease of Bitty’s mouth, he remembers the other people in the room and pulls away from Jack, with a whisper of “ten minutes” as he pulls away, just loud enough that Jack will hear it, which earns him a confused glance, but Jack says nothing.

When Bitty settles back into his spot, Ransom and Holster are waggling their brows at him. They look like the cats that spit roasted the canary, and Bitty rolls his eyes. “I suppose y’all are very happy with yourselves?”

“Thrilled,” they answer in unison.

He sighs and leans back on his hands to stretch out his back, definitely not looking to see if Jack is watching the arch of his back or the line of his neck. It’s an old move, but luckily not one Ransom or Holster have caught onto as a deliberate ploy, and it works. “Well, I think I’d better be on my way. I have a date tomorrow afternoon and a boy needs his beauty sleep.”

He exits the apartment with smacking kisses on the cheek, a furtive glance towards Jack, and whoops and hollers about his date tomorrow. He blows kisses and waves before heading toward the elevator.

As soon as he hears the door shut, Bitty turns right around and walks to stand just by the corner where he can be out of sight but still aware of what’s going on and settles against the wall with his phone.

He could have calculated this all wrong. Maybe he scared Jack away, which was his goal up until about an hour later when he was laughing with Jack and watching him kiss Ransom. Maybe Jack didn’t get his message and won’t leave in ten minutes.

Maybe he will just to tell Bitty off and further humiliate him.

The time creeps by, and Bitty feels soberer and less brave by the minute, until he’s shaking like a leaf and a stress headache is creeping up the back of his neck.

The door opens, a few goodbyes are shouted, and the door shuts. Bitty hears Jack shuffle his feet and clear his throat before he steps out from around the corner with a gulp of all the confidence left in his body.

Jack looks surprised but mostly pleased to see him standing there, and he smiles just the slightest amount when he takes a half step forward. “Glad I didn’t read that wrong.”

Bitty smiles and closes the gap between them, pressing into Jack and kissing him. “Definitely not.”

Jack presses forward again, that tongue pressing in and Bitty lets him this time. He thinks he could get drunk again on this alone. He has to pull away though when he hears shuffling from inside Ransom’s apartment. “Going to take me home?”

Jack nods and opens the door, pulling Bitty inside with enough force to weaken his knees. “Can I ask what’s with the sneaking around?”

“Don’t want to give them the satisfaction.”

“There’s a joke there about giving me the satisfaction.”  
“Please shut up and take me to bed.”

Jack pulls him to the bedroom, pressing kisses to his lips the whole time like he needs them to survive, and pulls Bitty into his lap when he sits on the edge of the bed covered in soft gray sheets. Bitty straddles him, staying high on his knees to have the upper hand as he runs his hands through Jack’s thick black hair, and flushes hot when Jack’s eyes flutter closed at the sharp sting of pain.

Bitty pushes him back and pulls off his clothes slowly, pinching lightly at Jack when he needs to shift to ease the way. Once they’re both naked, Bitty settles himself across his thighs again and runs his fingers through that thick chest hair and pulls that for good measure before leaning down to lick across Jack’s collarbones and kiss down his body, nipping and sucking as he goes.

Jack, for his part, seems happy to let Bitty do whatever he wants, the only points showing otherwise are his hands fluttering and grasping at the sheets intermittently, so Bitty takes them in his own and presses them against the bed while he kisses at Jack’s thighs, determined to not let this night be forgotten or easily hidden.

He presses a quick kiss to the head of Jack’s dick, licks off the precum, and smirks at the gasp it earns him before pulling himself up Jack’s body to kiss him again. “Do you have lube and condoms?”

Jack stills and nods. “I do, but I don’t…I’m not really prepped for anal? And I don’t want to?”

He looks so uncertain, Bitty has to kiss the look off his face. “That’s fine. Your thighs?”

From the speed at which Jack practically throws Bitty off of him and scrambles for the supplies, he likes that idea. He tosses them toward Bitty and rolls over onto his front, magnificent ass on display. Bitty swats at it and admires the jiggle.

“Hold on. Do you have a towel? Don’t want a wet spot.”

Once all the necessarily preparation is done, Bitty finds himself back in possibly the best situation he’s been in: staring at a beautiful man spread out in front of him, vulnerable and waiting for Bitty to do what he wants.

The lube pours out over Jack’s thighs like a glaze on a hot cake, and Bitty takes a moment to just take it in before smoothing it over the insides where he needs it. Once Jack is slicked up, he slips the condom on himself (for easier cleanup) and eases himself into the tight space.

It’s bliss. Hot, tight, heat with the occasional nudge up against Jack’s balls and the symphony of his gasps and moans while Bitty leans over him and grabs his hands to press Jack further into the mattress and _take._

Jack’s orgasm surprises him, rips through and makes itself known in the form of his thighs clenching around Bitty’s dick, and a hoarse shout that has Bitty losing rhythm to chase his own release. It doesn’t take long, with Jack’s fingers between his, and those thighs squeezing him even tighter now that Jack can focus more.

He comes and collapses onto Jack’s back. His face is sweaty against Jack’s back, and the whole thing is become unsexier by the second, but it’s nice, and Bitty feels surrounded by a pleasant hum that courses through to his toes while he rests and catches his breath.

Finally, he rolls off, pulls off the condom and ties it off with a grossed out noise. He grins at Jack, who’s watching him with a soft look in his eyes, and nudges him with his toes. “You got a shower we can share?”

-

Bitty wakes up in a warm patch of sunlight, in the most comfortable bed he’s ever been in, wrapped in a pair of strong arms. His back is stuck to Jack’s chest by a thin sheen of sweat, which is unpleasant, but not any more so than with anyone else Bitty has slept with. It’s comfortable and he smiles to himself as him unsticks them just enough to roll over, body twinging with pleasant aches. Then he comes face to face with Jack’s frown.

“Uh, is everything okay?”

Jack does not answer.

“Do you want me to leave?” God, Bitty is an idiot. He stayed all night at the place of a guy who up until now he’s only ever argued with. Of course, Jack did not want him to stay. He starts to pull away, but Jack holds him still.

“I think I ruined everything.”

Bitty waits for Jack. He can tell the man isn’t finished, has a look on his face like he’s choosing his next words carefully, mulling it all over to pick the perfect phrasing. “I feel like I came on too strong and you pitied me and now you’re going to leave, and I’ll have ruined everything with you and Ransom.”

His voice wobbles while he talks, and his eyes dart around the room like he’d rather look at anything else, like he’d rather _be_ anywhere else, but when his eyes finally rest on Bitty, they’re so earnest and open and nothing like the Jack he met and fought with.

If he’d met this jack, he would have fallen in love immediately.

“Well, how about we make breakfast and go from there?”

The corner of Jack’s mouth curls up and his arms tighten around Bitty, hitching him closer. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

-

If you’d asked Jack yesterday morning whether he had the ingredients for eggs benedict, you would have received nothing more than a befuddled shrug, because he genuinely did not know what went into a hollandaise sauce. It was a pleasant surprise to learn that he did, and even more pleasant to listen to Bitty talk while he whipped up breakfast for the two of the, setting Jack to task juicing oranges with a quip about “putting those muscles to work.”

By the time Jack has enough for two glasses and a little spare, Bitty has two steaming plates of benedict and sides of steamed asparagus done in a miraculously short amount of time. He squints at Bitty, who just beams and hip checks him with both plates in hand, heading toward the living room, plates in hand. “Come on, lazy bones. Let’s eat.”

Bitty waits for Jack to pick his spot in the corner of the couch and then throws the whole world off its axis by settling directly on his lap, legs stretched out along the length of the couch. “Are you going to eat before your food gets cold? Or do you plan on keepin’ up your staring?”

“I-“ Jack really wants to continue staring. Bitty is in those devastating red shorts from last night, but has pulled on Jack’s blue tank over them, and it’s sliding off of one shoulder, exposing a bite mark and miles of freckled skin that Jack can still taste if he focuses long enough. He leans in to press a kiss there, gets a pleased hum from Bitty, and reaches around him for his plate.

Eating with someone in your lap is awkward and difficult, and Jack has to ask Bitty to hand him his juice a few times, but they manage, and by the time the food is settled in his stomach, Jack is feeling comfortable and sated. The shaking of his hands over ruining relationships has subsided and is replaced by pleasant weight holding him to the ground.

Bitty clears off the plates and pushes a hand against Jack’s chest to keep him in place, giving the plates a quick rinse and putting them in the dishwasher like he’s completely comfortable in any kitchen he meets. When he comes back, he settles in Jack’s lap, hands him the book on the table, and pulls out his phone.

Jack takes the command for what it is and opens to the marker in his pleasure reading-a book about the technological advances about the civil war-and actually makes progress in it for the first time in over a week.

After about half an hour of that, Jack has to ask, “Why are you sitting on my lap?”

Bitty doesn’t look up from his phone. “I can move if you want.”<\p>

“No!” Jack exclaims, and flushes. “No, I like it. It’s just…how did you know?”

This gets Bitty to put down his phone. “Is it too weird that it’s because of Ransom?”

“I think this whole thing is because of him, so, no not really.”

“Well, Ransom sometimes has panic attacks, so he needs things to ground him. I usually feed him, but I noticed last night that you-erm-“ It’s Bitty’s turn to flush now, biting his lip and wrinkling his nose like a rabbit so Jack just has to lean forward and kiss him right on the tip of it.

“You noticed?”

“That you like being manhandled a bit. Held down. So, I figured that might help here? A little pressure?”

“You’re amazing,” Jack breathes out.

The flush deepens until Bitty is scarlet. “Oh please, I’m just your neighbor’s ex-fuck-buddy who gives it up too easily. Not to mention a little bit of a hick. Nothing special.”

“I beg to differ.”

Bitty’s mouth falls open into an adorable ‘o’. “I thought I just wanted to sleep with you.”

“I thought so too.”

The ‘o’ melts into a smile. “And now?”

“I’d like to get to know you. You?”

The small smile is suddenly blinding and is quickly tucked away into the crook of Jack’s neck. “I think I’d like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is fabbittle and the art for the fic can be found here: https://karin848.tumblr.com/post/185305034006/my-third-and-final-piece-for-the-omgcpreversebang


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